ChangeLog Generator…

I’ve been looking into source control and version control software to help manage and organise some of our code. The majority of them don’t seem to fit our workflow and are to restrictive or complicated for tiny projects. I’m a massive fan of the good old ChangeLog (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changelog) which does not scale well with larger projects.

So, I’ve built a little “one page” script (technically a few files if you include images for the GUI). Nice and simple app to manage a ChangeLog for a larger project but not quite big enough for full version management software.

Aims:

Make the change log easier to read.

Make it easier to record changes.

Conform to the standard format as much as possible.

I’ll probably be adding bits and bobs every now and then to be sure to check back. (such as searching and filtering)

Added the ability to list multiple files/paths. Simply use ” & ” between each one.

Fixed the massive bug/fail where only one user could submit changes per day…

General GUI improvements.

Added “Reload” button, because browser reload keeps asking for confirmation if you have submitted a change recently. (due to it all being one file)

Clicking the project title will take you back to the main change log page.

Added “Anchors” (this is a bigy!) You can now use URL links to link to a specific change, date or date+user. They are similar to HTML anchors. (The Anchors are user readable e.g. “2012-04-10+Ben_Hoskins+2”, this keeps the whole ‘useable change log text without script mission’ in play.)

Added the “Todo” change type.

You can show/hide the Anchor links (e.g. “[#]”).

Since Todo is now a thing, there needed to be an ability to strike/tick off done Todo’s. So I added “RE:” such as in emails, to refer to (and strikeout ) a previous change/todo simply type “RE:” followed by the it’s Anchor, followed by anything else you want to type.

Added auto-RE:Anchor link. So you don’t have to type “RE:” etc. Just go to the change you want to refer-to/tick-off (via. clicking its Anchor link) and then click the “RE:Anchor” button and it will auto fill-in the “Add Change” form.

Current Version 2.2 (2012-12-28):

Complete code rewrite.

Efficiency and stability improvements.

Input handling improvements.

Security updates.

Scalability improvements.

UI improvements.

EOU improvements.

Many other improvements.

Feel free to download, use and mod. Licensed under the (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beerware) licence. So, you can do what ever you wish with it but it’s always awesome to give credit where credit is due.

Let me know if you find any bugs, have improvements or requests in the comments. Go mental.